kitchen table philosophy

Monthly Archives: December 2018

By Joseph Raffa

There is a hidden agenda in the world, a deeper significance, not usually noticed as the mind goes about its daily business. Through surface perception the world is clearly demarcated. Our surroundings, the things we do, our appearance, all this is familiar and with many this is as far as they go.

It’s the world we live in. The eyes, the ears, the bodily based senses inform us of this world. Through the senses we do not receive clear evidence of a deeper significance, of anything different from the usual run of manifest phenomena.

The mind dwells in contact with an ocean of sensations, forged into perceptions that are the basis of the experiences it knows. Thinking takes its cue from this reservoir of imprints. It arises in response to the known. It is from this known base that it seeks to expand, to go wider and deeper and get down to ultimate answers. Its movement is conditioned by the known and by its measure of understanding. It seeks solutions and conclusions that its understanding agrees with. What else can it do?

To go beyond its understanding would leave it in a void of uncertainty. It would be like a fish out of water, not knowing what, where or how nor itself in the process. Could the mind come to grips with a deeper significance that is beyond its normal range of understanding, beyond the process of knowing that it is accustomed to, beyond the awareness it has of itself, its surroundings and the interactions that take place? And where would the evidence come from if not from the mind’s acknowledgement of what this is?

The sensitivity we are (mind) is the basis for living,for knowing ourselves and the world. Deny this and where are we? This sensitivity is included in the hidden agenda, the deeper significance mentioned earlier. It cannot be left out, to stand aside and be a reality in its own right.

The sensitivity we are and its relationship to the Universal is the hidden agenda, the deeper significance not noticed by surface perception. With the surface mind we are linked to appearance yet in essence we are one with this hidden reality. Thinking deals with the imprint of life, with the footprints left by life’s moment to moment flow. Thinking cannot go beyond itself and apprehend the unlimited. In this deeper significance all things are at rest in an unbroken state. Appearance is not an absolute. All phenomena is a passing parade. While it holds the centre stage of attention the hidden significance cannot reveal its nature.

Revelation breaks this impasse, takes the mind beyond. The known is discarded for a moment. With this out of the way, there is nothing to prevent the realisation of the deeper significance. The problem created by the mind is solved, but not by the mind. Mind, in its essence and the deeper significance are One.